ich by most readers will be considered of
superlative authority as to one important part of the case: In Stowe's
Survey of London, vol. ii. p. 7, is preserved a copy of the rules or
regulations established by parliament in the eighth year of Henry the
Second, for the government of the licensed stews in Southwark, among
which I find the following: "No stewholder to keep any woman that hath
the perilous infirmity of burning." This was 330 years before the voyage
of Columbus. If this "perilous infirmity of burning" be the disease now
denominated the Lues Venerea, the question is solved as to the concern
of America in its production. And all that Oviedo, Guicciardin,
Charlevoix, and others say, as to its first appearance in Europe, when
the king of Spain sent an army to the assistance of Ferdinand the Second
of Naples, must be reckoned as applicable only to its greater frequency,
or more common occurrence, than had before been known. But, indeed, the
description given of the disease which then prevailed so alarmingly, is
with some difficulty reconcileable to what is now ascertained of the
venereal infection. Guicciardin himself seems to hint at a diversity in
its form and mode of reception, betwixt the period he assigns for its
appearance, and "after the course of many years." "For then," says he,
(the quotation is made from Fenton's curious translation, London, 1599)
"the disease began to be less malitious, changing itself into diverse
kindes of infirmity, _differing from the first calamity_, whereof truly
the regions and people of our times might justly complain, _if it
happened to them without their proper disorder_ (that is, without their
own fault,) seeing it is well approved by all those that have diligently
studied and observed the properties of that evil, that either never or
very rarely it happeneth to any otherwayes, than by contagious whoredome
or immoderate incontinency." That a mistake exists in the early accounts
as to the nature of the disease which was found at Hispaniola by the
Spaniards, and by them on their return to Europe communicated to the
French and Neapolitans, is very probable from the circumstance mentioned
in them, that some vegetable substances, especially _guiaicum_, were
effectual for its cure;--since it is most certain, that the Lues Venerea
of modern times is not at all destructible by such means, whereas there
are several cutaneous affections which may be benefited by them. A
similar remark m